Triticum aestivum cultivar:HD2329

The major threat to wheat production in past decades has been the rust epidemics. The present study was targeted towards understanding of the mechanism and functional characterization of miRNAs of wheat in response to leaf rust ingression. With the improvement in methods to explore the transcriptome, in recent years there have been great advances in identifying and understanding non-coding RNAs. Recent studies indicate involvements of miRNAs in plant development, growth and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, adaptive responses, metabolism, and signal transduction. Therefore, Illumina's deep sequencing technology was used for transcriptome-wide identification of miRNAs and their expression profiling in response to leaf rust infection using mock and pathogen inoculated resistant (HD2329+Lr24) and susceptible (HD2329) near-isogenic wheat plants.